Eep! The IPA is almost gone! Quick! Take some notes!

Appearance: Bright, golden, crystal clear amber. Lots of fluffy, white head. Sustained, rapid effervescence.

Nose: Grapefruit, orange, tart citrus in general. Slightly dry.

Taste: Very citrusy, mostly grapefruit. Earthy and piney. Fairly bitter, buffered by a hint of caramel sweetness. Finishes bitter, in that way that begs another sip.

Mouthfeel: Light-to-medium. Crisp and dry. Barest hint of tongue-coating. A lot of CO2 bite. Foamy, foamy, and foamy.

Overall: We almost ran out of our IPA before realizing we needed to do a tasting writeup. It’s a bit addicting, see, even though a good two-thirds of our bottles turned out to be foamy gushers.

We aren’t entirely sure what happened with the carbonation, but our brother-in-law thinks some kind of bacterial contamination could be to blame. There’s supposed to be a strain that doesn’t change the flavor but does excrete a lot of CO2. That’s as good an explanation as any.

Once the assault of carbonation settles down, this is one of the best IPAs we’ve ever tasted. We love the way the subtle sweetness plays against the citrus to give an almost lemony tart sensation… which, I’m just now realizing, might actually be the result of infection. In any case, we think we succeeded in showcasing the Simcoe hop, so that’s a win.

Homebrewing, Tasting Add Comment »

Whu— Oh, hey. Hey! Hey, wow, how’s it going? Yeah, I’ve been meaning to blog, it’s just been— I’ve been so busy with… work and… stuff. Well, hey, you look like you’re doing well! Ha ha…

I’m just gonna get to talking about this beer now, yeah?

Appearance: Light-to-golden amber. Very clear. Fluffy, bone white head. Lots of effervescence.

Nose: Tart berries. Cloves. Faintly alcoholic.

Taste: A perfect mix of sweet and tart. Hop bitterness takes a back seat to the tartness. Cloves, oranges, berries. Noticeable alcohol could stand to be masked a bit more, but doesn’t detract significantly.

Mouthfeel: Light to medium body, yet somehow slightly viscous, especially as it warms up. Coats the tongue. A little bit of an alcohol sting.

Overall: Not utterly hefeweizen-like, but there is just enough clove to at least suggest that it might have been a hefe in another life, maybe one that was born in Germany but raised in Belgium. The raisins are not as overt as we would have liked, but we love the tartness from the cranberries, which is assertive without completely drowning out the orange. The dryness could also prove to make this a great gateway beer for wine aficionados.

In a word, Hefe the ORC is totallyfreakingexcellentnoseriouslyguysholycrap. It’s results like this that make brewing such a fun hobby. It’s barely the hefeweizen we advertised it to be, but that’s fine, because Hefe the ORC has so much weirdness and complexity that we stopped caring what arbitrary style it fits into long ago. It’s simply a delicious and fragrant beer, and we could not be happier with it.

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Tasting 1 Comment »

Holy crap, where did 2009 go? It feels like the year just began, and now it has come full circle.

Last January we made some brewing resolutions. I resolved to brew new styles, which we definitely accomplished: Dry Irish Stout, dry-hopped Dubbel, Kölsch, hybrid Pale Ale (the Bee Sting!), hybrid Belgian Hefe, Barleywine, IPA, Tripel and Oatmeal Stout. The only overlaps from 2008 would be the tripel (or Ginpel), which uses our original Tripel recipe, but adds classic gin aromatics.

We also kept to a fairly regular brew schedule, and essentially kicked fruit extract to the curb—simply because we didn’t brew with fruit this year, unless you count dried cranberries and raisins. Ray kept to his resolution of being adventurous—his recipe for Hefe the ORC was bold and playful, which came out in the beer’s flavor, aroma, and of course, its name.

In 2009 we went back to the Brandywine Craft Brewers’ Festival, glad to be back after missing it in 2008. We also attended the Philly Beer Fest at the Navy Yard, which was mammoth but good, and a Winterfest at Stoudts in late February. Hopefully in 2010 we’ll make it back to Savor, and possibly GABF for the first time.

Maybe most important, we got married in 2009. In a brewery. Stoudts Brewery to be exact. It’s pretty hard to top that, and we were told by a number of our guests that it was one of the best weddings they had been to. We loved the fact that we had over 11 beers on tap to choose from, including Smooth Hoperator, Stoudts’ Winter Ale (this year it was a hoppy red), Gold (a Munich-style Helles), Pils, Double IPA, Scarlet Lady (an ESB), a robust porter, Stoudt’s Pale Ale, Peppercorn Pumpkin Ale (aka Peppercornhole), Oktoberfest, and for our wedding toast: Old Fat Dog Imperial Oatmeal Stout (for me) and Stoudts’ Tripel (for Ray). Then we honeymooned in Denver, one of the other great beer cities in the US.

Also in November, I was selected to be the Philadelphia Homebrewing Examiner for Examiner.com. It’s an exciting experience that’s providing me with the tools and initiative to dig deeper into our local homebrewing community. Next stop: writing for the BA’s publications—someday, hopefully.

2009 has been great, but I’ve got a feeling that 2010 has a lot of great things pushed up its sleeves. Until then, Happy New Year!

Homebrewing, Miscellany 2 Comments »

I am a child of rock n’ roll. Not like, child of Led Zepplin groupies, but more like child of a dad that played Led Zepplin and other classic rock on the way to and from church Sunday mornings. How many 5-year-olds have a classic rock radio station bumper sticker on their bikes?

Months ago I was driving home from work and heard The Who’s “Boris the Spider” come on and I fell in love. I danced in the car, bouncing around to the music, probably looking like an idiot in traffic. I consider it one of my “happy songs.”

I knew I wanted to use the song as an inspiration point for a brew. Spiders tend to be black … I’d be brewing in the fall … I love oatmeal stouts in the colder months … I was introduced to chai in college by a close friend and the smell of the spiced tea makes me think of chilly autumn days in Western New York … spiders and stouts are black …

So there you have it. A wild stream of consciousness that brought me to this: Boris the Spider Chai Oatmeal Stout. I could totally see Pete Townshend drinking this.

20 September 2009
Boris the Spider Chai Oatmeal Stout
Extract w/ grains
5 gallons, 60 minute boil, 30 minute steep

6.0 lbs Light Liquid Malt Extract (60 min)
1.0 lb Dried Malt Extract (60 min)

Specialty Grains:
1.5 lbs Flaked Oats
9.00 oz Crystal 60L
8.00 oz Chocolate Malt
8.00 oz German Carafa II
4.00 oz Roasted Barley

1.00 oz Sterling Hops [7.0% AA] (60 min)
2.00 oz UK Kent Golding [4.2% AA] (60 min)
1.00 oz UK Kent Golding [4.2% AA] (5 min)

Custom cold-brewed chai tea with traditional spices (recipe to come)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min – clarifier)

White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004)

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

—

Create a yeast starter 2-3 days in advance.

Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Bring to boil.

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat and add 1.0 lb dried malt extract and 6.0 lbs liquid malt extract. Bring to a boil. Add bittering hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 5 minutes, add remaining hops.

At end of boil, remove all hops. Chill wort to 75°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Decant yeast starter and pitch yeast. Aerate thoroughly. Ferment at 70-75°F.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Age for 1 – 2 weeks.

Rack to bottling bucket. Add cold-brewed chai tea strained of spices. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Bottle. Age for 2 – 3 weeks.

I’m still working on my chai recipe, but I can tell you that I will be mixing it myself. Chai is typically brewed with Indian Assam tea, but I didn’t have the best of luck finding this tea. So instead I picked up Twinings of London’s English Breakfast Tea, which is a blend of Kenyan and Assam. I have a wonderful stash of spices to work with, so I’m excited!

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Recipes 1 Comment »

Back in May, we talked about my experiment mixing gin with our Tripel, and how wonderfully wonderful it was. We were inspired to try brewing a tripel with juniper and rosemary, and that happened yesterday:

23 August 2009
Ginpel
Extract w/ grains
5 gallons, 60 minute boil, 30 minute steep

5.0 lbs Pilsner Liquid Malt Extract (60 min)
4.0 lbs Pilsner Liquid Malt Extract (15 min)
2.0 lbs Demerara sugar (15 min)

Specialty Grains:
1.0 lbs Crystal Malt 15L
1.0 lbs Carafoam Malt

1.00 oz Sterling Hops [7.0% AA] (60 min)
2.00 oz Sterling Hops [7.0% AA] (5 min)

1.00 oz Crushed coriander seed
1.00 oz Sweet orange peel
1.00 oz Juniper berries
0.50 oz Grains of paradise
0.50 oz Rosemary

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min – clarifier)

White Labs Trappist Ale Yeast (WLP500)

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

—

Create a yeast starter 2-3 days in advance.

Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Bring to boil.

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat and add 5.0 lbs malt extract. Bring to a boil. Add bittering hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 15 minutes, turn off heat. Add remaining malt extract while stirring. Return to boil.

At 5 minutes, add remaining hops.

At end of boil, remove all hops. Chill wort to 75°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Decant yeast starter and pitch yeast. Aerate thoroughly. Ferment at 70-75°F.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Add coriander, orange peel, juniper berries, grains of paradise, and rosemary. Age for 1 – 2 weeks.

Rack to bottling bucket. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Bottle. Age for 2 – 3 weeks.

Definitely one of our odder recipes. I have a feeling the juniper and rosemary will end up being over-emphasized, but nothing ventured! *fingers crossed*

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Recipes Add Comment »

Barleywine is that odd case of a beer style name making a lot of sense. It’s basically a wine-strength beer, literally a barley wine. Barleywine is fairly sweet and fruity, with just enough hop bitterness to keep it from being cloying. It’s meant to be sipped and savored, but if you want to drink it like a normal beer, by all means, go for it. Just don’t expect me to catch you afterward.

Because of the huge amount of malt that goes into a barleywine, yeast can sometimes struggle for roughly the same reason that one slips into a torpor after a big bag of Skittles. A higher fermentation temperature can help out, and the resulting fruity esters will probably be welcome anyway.

Thanks to the high alcohol content (anywhere from 8-12%), barleywine ages well. Mind you, if you’ve under-bittered your barleywine, no amount of aging is going to fix it, as bitterness will tend to decrease over time, but if you open a fresh bottle of barleywine and it tastes like it could help a Saturn V make low-Earth orbit, there’s a good chance it’ll evolve into something tasty with a few months in the cellar.

18 July 2009
Barleywine
Extract w/ grains
5 gallons, 90 minute boil, 30 minute steep

8.0 lbs Ultralight Liquid Malt Extract (90 min)
4.0 lbs Ultralight Liquid Malt Extract (15 min)

Specialty Grains:
1.0 lbs Crystal Malt 60L
1.0 lbs Victory Malt

3.25 oz Kent Golding Hops [5.4% AA] (90 min)
1.00 oz Kent Golding Hops [4.2% AA] (90 min)
2.00 oz Centennial Hops [8.0% AA] (90 min)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min – clarifier)

3 vials White Labs Dry English Ale yeast (WLP007)

2 oz corn sugar (bottling)

—

Create a yeast starter 1-2 days in advance.

Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Bring to boil.

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat and add 8.0 lbs malt extract. Bring to a boil. Add hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 15 minutes, turn off heat. Add remaining malt extract while stirring. Return to boil.

At end of boil, remove all hops. Chill wort to 75°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Decant yeast starter and pitch yeast. Aerate thoroughly. Ferment at 70-75°F.

At approx. 25% attenuation, create a yeast starter. After 24 hours, decant and pitch.

Repeat at approx. 50% attenuation.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Age for 3 – 4 months.

Rack to bottling bucket. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Bottle. Age for 6 months to 1 year.

We had to improvise a bit on the hops. The hops that arrived in our Morebeer order were much lower alpha than what was listed on Morebeer’s website, so we had to find a way to make up for the missing IBU. Fortunately, we had some extra hops that were going to go unused in a future brew day. This is why the hop amounts listed in the recipe aren’t round and why there are two of the same hope variety listed with two different alpha acidities.

I’ll be honest here: I am not wholly optimistic about how this will turn out. Our original gravity came out to 1.093, exactly what we wanted, but an awful lot for yeast to handle. Theoretically, we’re looking for 75% attenuation, for a final gravity of 1.020-1.022, which would equate to about 9.5% ABV, but that’s feel-good optimism. In practice, there’s a lot that can go wrong, chiefly of which being severe underattenuation. An incomplete fermentation would leave us with a cloyingly sweet barleywine, but that’s the least of our problems. If the yeast should somehow decide to wait until they’re in the bottles to finish eating all of our maltose, we could find ourselves wading in a sea of beer and broken glass. Explosions are bad. Pointy explosions are worse.

That’s why we’re going to be pitching three separate yeast starters over the course of the fermentation. If the beasts that are already in there get burned out, then one hopes a fresh batch of fungus can start a new shift. Fingers are crossed. I’ll be content with 60-65% attenuation after four weeks. Worst case, we can always drop in a vial of champagne yeast.

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Recipes Add Comment »

During the 60s and early 70s, my Uncle Larry was in a real rockin’ band called Snake that was active during the anti-war movement. In 1970 they played to a packed crowd in Cornell University’s Barton Hall at the America Is Hard to Find Peace Festival.

According to whichever bandmate who does the most posting to the Snake Facebook fan page, “… this festival promised a venue for the Berrigan Brothers … Catholic priests who were wanted by the FBI for counseling draft dodgers. They actually showed up in biker attire with helmets and managed to make it on stage and off without getting caught.” Snake even was adopted by the East Coast motorcycle gang BREED and opened for a number of great artists like Janis Joplin.

Yeah. My Uncle was in a freakin’ kick-ass band (and still is, just a different one).

So, um, what does this have to do with beer? Well, one bandmate’s name was Simmi Slovacek, and I remember hearing that name on and off as a teenager. And you know what? Simmi sounds a lot like “Simcoe” … so in naming this brew, I pay tribute to my Uncle’s band with “Simie the SNAKE.”

14 June 2009
Simie the Snake Simcoe IPA
5 gallons, 60 minute boil

7.0 lbs Pilsen Light Liquid Malt Extract (60 min)
1.0 lb Wildflower Honey (15 min)

Specialty Grains:
1.5 lbs Crystal 15L
0.5 lbs Caravienne
0.5 lbs Special Roast

1.50 oz Simcoe Hops [11.9% AA] (60 min)
1.00 oz Simcoe Hops [11.9% AA] (15 min)
1.00 oz Simcoe Hops [11.9% AA] (5 min)
1.50 oz Simcoe Hops [11.9% AA] (dry hop)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min – clarifier)

White Labs California Ale yeast (WLP001)

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

—

Create a yeast starter 2-3 days in advance.

Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Bring to boil.

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat and add malt extract. Bring back to a boil. Add 60 minute hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 15 minutes, turn off heat. Add wildflower honey. Stir until dissolved. Return to boil. Add 15 minute hops.

At 5 minute, add 5 minute hops.

At end of boil, remove all hops. Chill wort to 75°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Pitch yeast starter and aerate thoroughly. Allow to ferment to completion at 60-65°F in bathtub full of cold water with a wet-towel wrap.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Add dry hops. Age for 1 – 2 weeks.

Rack to bottling bucket. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Bottle. Age for 2 weeks.

Though we were a bit off with our gravity (it’s been a reoccurring issue that is quite frankly pissing us off), the wort tasted great, and the other samples we’ve taken have also been delicious. I’m excited to get this brew into the bottle, and most definitely into my uncle’s hands.

Homebrewing, Miscellany, Our Brew Days, Recipes 2 Comments »

Hefeweizen was one of the first styles I was exposed to when I first started exploring good beer at the Iron Hill in Newark, Delaware. It’s a sweet German wheat beer brewed with a strain of yeast that produces lots of banana and clove flavors. This particular strain does not readily settle out of suspension, and the beer is served unfiltered, giving hefeweizen a cloudy appearance and a thick, bready body. It’s a great springtime beer, but the big body and above-average alcohol (depending on the brewer) make it less suitable for hot summer days, making it more appropriate at sunset. Or, well, sunrise, too. I’m not here to judge.

We got adventurous again with this recipe. We’d wanted to explore dried fruit for a while, so we’ll be adding raisins and dried cranberries to the beer during a two-week secondary fermentation. We’ll then transfer the beer to a tertiary fermenter, wringing the raisins and cranberries out to reclaim all of the beer that gets absorbed into them, and age it with orange peel and a lot of coriander. There’s going to be a big danger of oversweetening the beer with all of that fruit, so we’re using a bit more bittering hops than you’d normally see in a hefe (actually, we’re doubling it).

3 May 2009
Hefe the ORC
5 gallons, 60 minute boil

4.0 lbs Pilsen Light Liquid Malt Extract (60 min)
4.0 lbs Wheat Malt Extract (60 min)
2.o lbs Orange Blossom Honey (15 min)

0.50 oz Sterling Hops [6.0% AA] (60 min)
0.50 oz Amarillo Hops [8.4% AA] (60 min)
0.50 oz Vanguard Hops [4.4% AA] (60 min)
0.50 oz Chinook Hops [11.1% AA] (15 min)
0.50 oz Sterling Hops [6.0% AA] (1 min)
0.50 oz Amarillo Hops [8.4% AA] (1 min)
0.50 oz Vanguard Hops [4.4% AA] (1 min)
0.50 oz Chinook Hops [11.1% AA] (1 min)

1.0 lbs Raisins
1.0 lbs Dried cranberries

2.0 oz Sweet orange peel
2.0 oz Crushed coriander

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min – clarifier)

White Labs Hefeweizen Ale yeast (WLP380)

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

—

Create a yeast starter 2-3 days in advance.

Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Bring to boil.

Turn off heat, add malt extract. Bring back to a boil. Add 60 minute hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 15 minutes, turn off heat. Add orange blossom honey. Stir until dissolved. Return to boil. Add 15 minute hops.

At 1 minute, add 1 minute hops.

At end of boil, remove all hops. Chill wort to below 70°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Pitch yeast starter and aerate thoroughly. Allow to ferment to completion at 60-65°F.

Rack fermented beer over raisins and dried cranberries to secondary fermenter. Age for 2 weeks.

Rack to tertiary fermenter. Recover raisins and cranberries from secondary fermenter and squeeze absorbed beer into tertiary fermenter. Add orange peel and coriander. Age for 2 weeks.

Rack to bottling bucket. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Bottle. Age for 2 weeks.

The hopping schedule is needlessly complicated because we had a bunch of leftover hops that we just wanted to use up. Normally you’d just use something neutral like Sterling for all of your hopping.

We weren’t able to find dried cranberries that did not have added sugar. You may have better luck, but after consulting with our adviser, we concluded that the small amount of sugar on the cranberries would have no significant impact.

You might be wondering why we’re adding the coriander after fermentation is complete instead of during the boil. We’ve boiled it in the past, but the flavor has always been nonexistent in the final result. We’re guessing that the coriander flavors are volatile enough to be carried away by the CO2 released during primary fermentation, so we’re going to wait until all of that destructive effervescence is done first.

This will be a HUGE morale boost for us if it’s successful. Our previous attempts at getting a little trippy with our recipes have been a bit disappointing, but we have a really good feeling about this one. Neither one of us is especially crazy about adhering too strictly to the established styles, though we certainly understand how important it is to know them to give you a metric to hone your skills against. I guess this is just what happens when you put two creatives together and tell them to have fun. We could fart out a Reinheitsgebotized hefe if we wanted to, because proven recipes are so easy to come by, but isn’t it a bigger test of skill if you can make a train cross the continent without even touching the rail?

Regardless, we’ve got a pound of crow ready to roast if this does end up exploding in our faces.

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Recipes Add Comment »

I’m sure a number of you do not have fond childhood memories of bee stings. In fact, I’m pretty sure most of them are horrifying, or at least they were when you were 5.

Nevertheless, I have come to terms with bees — in spite of being stung numerous times. I don’t plan on going all “Lil’Kim Queen Bee” anytime soon, but the reality is that my name — Melissa — is Greek for “honeybee.”

Couple my newfound interest in bees with the recent March/April BYO article I read — “Club Profile: Barossa Brewers Club” — I came across Barossa Valley Brewing’s Bee Sting, which is a honey wheat beer. The name inspired me, and I wanted to make my own Bee Sting Ale, not a clone. I came up with the idea of focusing on the “bee” and the “sting.” For the bee, I wanted to use honey to bring about a dry sweetness, and for the sting, I wanted something with zip — leading me to choose the peppery, earthy seeds of paradise. And there you have it!

12 April 2009
Bee Sting Ale
5 gallons, 60 minute boil

5.0 lbs Pilsen Light Liquid Malt Extract (60 min)
2.0 lbs Orange Blossom Honey (15 min)

Specialty Grains:
0.5 lbs Crystal Malt 15L

1.0 oz Chinook Hops [11.1% AA] (60 min)
1.0 oz Amarillo Hops [8.2% AA] (15 min)
3.0 g Seeds of Paradise, crushed (5 min)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min — clarifier)

White Labs California Ale Yeast WLP001

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

———

Create a yeast starter 2-3 days in advance.

Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Heat to 155°F.

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat, add malt extract. Bring back to a boil. Add Chinook hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 15 minutes, turn off heat. Add orange blossom honey. Stir until dissolved. Return to boil. Add Amarillo hops.

At 5 minutes, add seeds of paradise

Chill wort to below 70°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Pitch yeast starter and aerate thoroughly. Allow to ferment to completion at 60-65°F.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Age for 1 – 2 weeks.

Rack to bottling bucket. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Bottle. Age for two weeks.

So far the beer has a wonderful flavor, with Chinook’s grapefruit coming out to play with the Amarillo’s citrus notes. When we racked the beer we noticed that the zip of the seeds of paradise wasn’t quite there yet, so we created a seeds of paradise extract to be added when we bottle (We’ll update the recipe here once we know how much extract is needed). Honestly, I’m happy with the sample I had after racking, but it’s not a true representation of my idea of a bee sting — it’s all bee, and not enough sting. I think the extract will help us bring up the sting, while still being refreshing.

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Recipes 2 Comments »

Northern Table is hosting this month’s Fermentation Friday, a last-Friday-of-the-month blogging event specially made for homebrew bloggers. This month’s topic: “Beer and Liquor”

One of the easier ways to add spice flavors to a beer is to steep the spices in vodka for a week or two and then add a measured amount of the resultant “potion” (as Randy Mosher likes to call it in Radical Brewing) to the beer at bottling time.

The advantage of this technique is that the recipe for the spice extract is easy to reproduce with precision, and it’s easy to make sure you’re adding the exact amount of spice flavor that you want. We’ll go over the details of this process in a future post.

The biggest disadvantage is the potential increase in alcohol content in the final beer, unless your personal philosophies dictate that this is not, in fact, a disadvantage. If alcohol content is a significant factor for you, it will pay off to learn how the addition of liquor to your beer will affect the final %ABV.

Get ready. This is gonna be mathy. Skip to the end if you’re not interested in the derivation.

Before mixing the liquor into the beer, we know the following quantities (note that percentages must be expressed as decimals, i.e. 35% is equivalent to 0.35):

, the %ABV in the beer
, the %ABV in the liquor
, the volume of beer
, the volume of liquor

From these quantities, we can derive the following:

The volume of alcohol in the beer: (1)
The volume of alcohol in the liquor: (2)

We can now derive our final equation. The final %ABV is equal to the total volume of alcohol in the beer and the liquor divided by the total volume of the beer and liquor:

Final %ABV:

Substituting in our equations for volumes of alcohol in the beer and liquor (equations (1) and (2), respectively), we get the final equation:

(3)

Now for an example. Suppose we add 8 fluid ounces of 80 proof vodka (40% ABV) to a 5 gallon batch of beer at 6% ABV. We need to be working in the same units for each volume, so let’s convert the volume of beer to ounces:

Plugging all of our numbers into (3), we get the final %ABV:

So the final %ABV will be 6.4%. As you can see, the difference will be small (though not insignificant) for even a half-pint of vodka. In reality, assuming you make a concentrated spice extract, you’re likely to need much less liquor than that, so in most cases, the change in alcohol content should not matter very much.

Fermentation Friday, Homebrewing, Technical 2 Comments »